File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2003/heidegger.0312, message 18


Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2003 13:31:09 +0100
From: artefact-AT-t-online.de (Michael Eldred)
Subject: Re: Liberal vs. social democracy - Gestell/Gewinnst


Cologne 02-Dec-2003

Malcolm Riddoch schrieb Mon, 1 Dec 2003 20:11:54 +0800:

> On Monday, December 1, 2003, at 08:26  AM, Anthony Crifasi wrote:
>
> > But when Heidegger says that the world is increasingly coming under
> > the sway of gestell, doesn't this ontically manifest precisely as less
> > and less uncontrollable non-resources and more and more controllable
> > resources? I can't think of anything else that it could ontically > mean.
>
> I'd say that uncontrollable resources are precisely standing reserve in
> a deficient sense, where uncontrollability implies that everything has
> already been understood from the perspective of ordering the chaotic
> earth as controllable standing reserve. Gestell as human understanding
> is a holism of relations of sense, it's a historical framework of, not
> a category for, that understanding. If you want some ontical ways to
> understand the increasing sway of Gestell then perhaps this increase
> has something to do with Heidegger's backwards looking romantic
> nostalgia for the old traditional way of life of the Swabian peasant (a
> nostalgia for the ancient origin in the work of art), or his futurist
> technological dream for Nazi led German Geist that collapsed into the
> technicism of the will to will. Either way, for Heidegger after WW2 the
> will to will order, as the culmination of the metaphysics of
> subjectness, emerged as the dominant globalising sway of modernity
> which today can be seen factically in the globally networked
> information flows that include digital 'money' streams, this email
> discourse, microwave satellite comms bringing you 65 channels of mostly
> bland crap to watch, or in your online order to Wal Mart paid for by
> credit card, dispatched via Fed Ex and delivered anywhere in the 'free'
> world within 5 working days. And for all this economic order to keep on
> happening we need modern stable forms of government, stable and lawful
> democratic order, at least that's what your President says.
>
> This information network can be ontically understood in cybernetic
> theory as the globalising tendency of all communication networks, from
> global diplomacy and its propaganda channels to the internet,
> literature and world trade etc., it's all interconnected nowadays if
> you haven't noticed, and I don't just mean digital technology but
> information in general as a network of 'knowing' about this modern
> world we all live in. The material infrastructure of technology is just
> the factical manifestation of our increasingly global modernising and
> ontical way of understanding the world and one's self in it as
> something in willful need of order. Singling out Wal Mart as
> 'non-Gestell' makes no sense to me as this monster corporation
> exemplifies the monopolising power and uniformity of these knowledge
> networks that have a global reach from the third world rainforests to
> Chinese sweat shops, to middle American small business and on to
> Manhattan's stock markets through to your own wallet and individual
> purchasing power.
>
> Ontologically you might want to understand this ontical way of
> describing factical phenomena such as Wal Mart in a holistic and
> historical sense as 'Gestell', as the overall framework within which
> your own understanding, both practical and theoretical, has already
> been and is now constantly re-constituted. But Wal Mart isn't itself
> Gestell, it's a specific factical manifestation of our modern
> interconnected and global way of life, just like the Rhine has been
> transformed from its poetic origin into a geographical fact of nature
> useful as a hydroelectric and tourist resource. The ontical
> understanding of these factical phenomena is to be understood
> ontologically.
>
> > I was actually thinking about that, since large windfarms are being
> > proposed here in Texas (the land of oil). It doesn't really seem like
> > a damming as in the case of the Rhine, which I think is a very
> > important factor in why Heidegger gives that as an example of gestell.
> > For example, a paddlewheel generator can also generate power from a
> > river, but it doesn't actually capture and store the river. Rather, it
> > is caught along by the river, which is already going by. But when a
> > river is dammed, it is actually caught, bottled, and stored as a
> > whole. Even a large windfarm, it seems to me, would still be left to
> > the wind and just be caught along with it, because the wind itself
> > would not actually be dammed and stored. So at the moment, it seems to
> > me that the wind is not defined under the sway of gestell when it
> > comes to power generation, or at least is farther from this than the
> > Rhine.
>
> Again I don't understand this need to make these ontical distinctions
> in what is factically a form of Gestell or not. Modern wind farms are
> in the same league as hydroelectric dams, they're major industrial
> projects utilising the same informational networks in government,
> industry, science and labour. Your distinction seems to be based on a
> very narrow interpretation of standing reserve as nature 'actually
> caught, bottled, and stored as a whole' which apparently only the dam
> can do to the Rhine. This pedantic distinction doesn't apply to the
> tourism industry which if anything apparently lets the Rhine be itself,
> apart from maybe some access roads and nice picnic grounds, along with
> the entire infrastructure needed to support tourism. Your logic is too
> narrow Anthony, and inconsistently applied.
>
> > Anyway, the reason I went through that was that I think it emphasizes
> > the core mark of gestell - its exclusivity. An old windmill also uses
> > the wind to generate power, but the wind is not transformed into wind
> > power because the wind is not stopped up and dammed. The Rhine is
> > essentially transformed into water power by the dam not because it is
> > used for water power (since a paddlewheel also does that) but because
> > the way the dam does this is by stopping up the whole river, which is
> > essentially a way of bottling up the whole river for storage. So
> > gestell is manifested most clearly in cases like that, and the more
> > things are like that, the more the world "darkens" for Heidegger. At
> > least I can't think of any other ontic manifestation of what that
> > could mean.
>
> How about traditional Australian Aboriginal husbandry of fishing
> resources? They dammed rivers up into artificial breeding ponds from
> which they netted food, is that Gestell? I guess it would be if they
> incorporated, attracted financing and brought in earth moving equipment
> and aquaculture scientists so as to maximise their yield and
> profitability in order to ship the fish to market in a timely fashion,
> perhaps they could have even scored a marketing and distribution deal
> with Wal Mart to sell their wares to you... You're not thinking
> holistically Anthony, the Rhine project was a national project with
> widespread interconnected political, economic and social consequences
> far beyond the actual dam works. And you still can't explain the simple
> fact of tourism in Heidegger's passing description of the Rhine.
>
> > But isn't the limit of what is useable precisely the limit of gestell?
> > So since engineers define what is useable depending on their
> > abilities, then don't these abilities historically determine the
> > current limits of the sway of gestell?
>
> Depends on what you mean by the term 'Gestell'. So far, at least from
> the perspective of Heidegger's Nietzsche, it means a globalising
> uniformity of subjectivity as the baseless will to will order for the
> sake of order, a historical order that constantly orders modern
> humanity into the truth of one's own subjective self-certainty
> irrespective of whatever values and beliefs might be in vogue today. As
> always Heidegger's notion of fundamental ontology must constantly start
> from the ontical basis of factical existence which is always in each
> case one's own historical Dasein. This ontical basis, the knowing
> subject, is our modern totalising and uniform world view factically
> manifested here in this very internet discussion about this world and
> the things in it. This world view isn't simply a scientist's
> calculations about the usefulness or not of a water source for
> hydroelectrics, the world view first frames what is knowable on the
> basis of which we can distinguish between nature and culture, what is
> good for use and what isn't and so on.
>
> > This is where I get confused, because on the one hand, when Henry
> > (healant) introduced corporations into the discussion by saying that
> > they regiment us according to Das Mann, both Michael Eldred and I
> > responded that no ontic [that's factical] entity can be identified
> > with or push us into an existential like Das Mann because the
> > ontological is not "effected" or "brought about" by ontic [factical]
> > entities like this
>
> What is ontical is what is known, and what is known are factical
> entities, or beings as a whole, I actually think Jud is closer to
> correct usage than you Anthony, but maybe I'm just being pedantic. As
> far as I know Heidegger's fundamental ontology describes the meaningful
> structure of our ontical understanding of factical existence, it's an
> ontology of human understanding as the understanding of being. All
> factical things like corporations are understood ontically in one way
> or another, and I don't see the problem with understanding the
> regimentation of corporatism in terms of the ontological structures of
> Gestell and das Man. I'd tend to agree that if corporations are part of
> a historical globalising network of order that constantly challenges us
> all forth into the uniformity of the one form of subjectivity, the
> they-self, then you might say 'that they regiment us according to Das
> Mann'.
>
> To frame your rebuttal in terms of 'the ontological is not "effected"
> or "brought about" by ontic [factical] entities' would seem to me to
> completely miss the point that ontical knowledge of factical beings is
> already ontologically structured. There is no dualism here between the
> 'ontological' on one side and the 'ontical' on the other, they are ways
> of knowing about the same thing, or things in general. Any ontical
> understanding of a factical corporation can be understood
> ontologically, in this case in terms of Gestell and das Man. You are
> still thinking in logical categories Anthony, try thinking 'vertically'
> instead but in a holistic sense.
>
> > to which Henry responded that existentials are not empty universals
> > but rather are historically and concretely manifested. But aren't you
> > giving essentially the same response now that I gave then - that
> > gestell is how the world (and everything in it) has already been
> > casted, and therefore cannot be identified with any entity or entities
> > in the world, or opposed to others? What then would be the point of
> > the anti-corporatism espoused by those like Henry Scholar and
> > healantHenry, if the world is already casted prior to any ontic entity
> > like a corporation?
>
> So I have no idea whatsoever by what you mean when you frame your
> question with: 'if the world is already casted prior to any ontic
> [factical] entity like a corporation?' What is this a priority and is
> it exclusive? Existentials are the meaningful and temporally
> articulated structures of Dasein's ontical understanding of its own
> historically and concretely manifested factical existence. That's the
> basic meaning of phenomenology as a descriptive analysis of one's own
> phenomenal world. We can't help but identify the ontological structures
> of this ontology in those entities that as a whole form the totality of
> what we ontically know as world and self. The 'ontological' is nothing
> other than this world we live in, and what else is there?
>
> > But if such possible corportments under gestell can be concretely
> > analyzed all the way down to the power of corporations or of US
> > foreign policy, then what's wrong with what I tried to show - namely,
> > that some ontic entities manifest gestell more than others? Isn't that
> > essentially the same thing? The only difference is that for me,
> > governments are the ontic entities which manifest gestell more than
> > corporations.
>
> You are free to interpret as you will. My emphasis would be more on the
> corporation and government as manifestations of the same globalising
> form of modern subjectivity rather than trying to say that corporations
> don't have anything to do with the metaphysical ordering of beings that
> has apparently been under way since the ancient Greek inception and
> that culminated in the global technological ordering of beings evident
> since Nazism collapsed into the modern nihilism of the will to will.
>
> > Michael (if I understand him correctly) has argued that capitalistic
> > social relations do not fall under gestell, because they are not
> > subject to lawlike calculable predictability, even by the
> > sophisticated standards of advertising and marketing. I still have
> > lingering doubts about that (as I told him earlier), since even modern
> > physics - a paradigmatic manifestation of gestell - has long since
> > given up Newtonian determinism in favor of statistical probability,
> > even for the most basic subatomic phenomena.
>
> Yes, well I come to Gestell with a similar Heideggerean focus on the
> modern scientific project with its origins in Aristotle through
> Descartes, Newton and Kant and on to the interesting problems of
> quantum physics. But there's another side to the thinking of Gestell,
> and that's Heidegger's Nietzsche and the will to will as exemplified by
> the Nazi disaster. This problem of Gestell is much wider than simply
> the 'lawlike calculable predictability' of pure physics.

Of course it is "much wider", and Anthony is only referring to a "paradigm".
The Gestell is Heidegger's word for the essence of modern technology, and
modern technology is the culmination in the modern age of what was set in train
not just by Greek _technae_, but by Greek thinking's thinking through of what
_technae_ is, i.e. its being. So we have to go all the way back to the (Greek)
beginning again and look at how both Plato and Aristotle think _technae_, and
how Heidegger himself reads Plato and Aristotle phenomenologically on the
question of _technae_ (and not simply _epistaemae_, knowledge, science). What
comes of this?

Firstly, that the focus is narrowed down to _technae poiaetikae_, i.e.
_poiaesis_, to the exclusion of, say, _technae ktaetikae_, i.e. the technique
of acquiring that involves explicitly a _social_ relation, namely, _allagae_,
_metabolae_ (exchange).

Secondly, that this _technae poiaetikae_ is thought by both Plato and Aristotle
as a foreknowing that knows how to bring a fore-seen result into presence.
Aristotle: _technae poiaetikae_ is _dynamis meta logou_, i.e. a power guided by
the _logos_. This has to be hammered in and must not be lost sight of in any
discussion of Gestell and technology. The interpretation of _technae
poiaetikae_ and _dynamis_ is the foundation and backdrop for _all_ Heidegger's
thinking on modern technology.

If this is so, then we are left with (at least) one question, namely, What is
to be made of _technae ktaetikae_, the technique of acquiring, which figures in
both Plato's and Aristotle's thinking? What is the ontological structure of
_technae ktaetikae_, i.e. what is its metaphysics? There is no way of even
APPROACHING these questions without returning to Plato and Aristotle, and
without realizing and keeping firmly in view that these questions did not
appear on the horizon of Heidegger's thinking. So, for one, loyal adherents to
Heidegger who regard him to be so far "ahead" of our "modern intelligence" will
never get the message. (The worst thing anyone pretending to philosophize can
do is to take a great philosopher as an authority.)

But for those of us affected and infected by the fathomlessness of questioning,
there is still some hope.

There's a lot more to be said on widening the scope of post-metaphysical
thinking, on taking over the baton from Heidegger and twisting his thinking
into the horizontal of _pros heteron_ (toward the other, social relations).
Aristotle's fourth category of _pros ti_ (relation) then comes to the front of
the queue for a change, and we have to ask how humans stand in relation to one
another and how the metabolism of exchange (_allagae_, _metabolae_) is
structured ontologically.

Michael
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> The Nazi's
> wrested order from chaos by willing yet more chaos, and although this
> was a form of political bootstrapping it wasn't rocket science, yet it
> certainly produced a lot of rocket scientists and some of the finest
> minds in quantum physics were in the service of its will to order
> chaos. And in many ways the Nazis set the sophisticated standards for
> modern advertising and marketing, although they learnt a lot from the
> US and British propagandists.
>
> You've opened up an interesting problem here Anthony, how do we think
> both the 'mathematical' problem and the will to will together in the
> enframing of our modern technological world view? How do we think
> science and politics as the same? Or Kant and Nietzsche? For Heidegger
> it all came down to the metaphysics of subjectness. However, I'm going
> to keep plowing the will to will to see where it goes so I'll leave the
> science to you for the moment, but I don't think these are two
> exclusive problems, they are equiprimordial and complementary if
> anything and I think we need to open the debate up to more questions
> rather than making ad hoc exclusive distinctions.
>
> > So I'm willing to accept that something less than absolute
> > predictability can be a (dimmer) manifestation of gestell, and
> > therefore that capitalistic social relations can be a manifestation of
> > gestell to whatever extent that those social relations are orderable,
> > predictable, and controllable. I would just argue that political
> > social relations exhibit those characteristics of orderability and
> > controllability even more. Is that just my ideology creeping in too?
> > Well I'm willing to discuss that, but it does seem to me that the
> > power of the government to exclude alternatives by physical force is
> > ontically closer to the power of the dam to physically exclude the
> > Rhine from alternate routes. The power of corporations, it seems to
> > me, consists in ways of swaying and influence which fall short of the
> > kind of outright exclusive force present in the dam and government
> > power.
>
> Cool, I'll buy that, as a tentative inclusive possibility, and what
> else do we have here? Like I said I'm not averse to opening up
> Heidegger's critique of modernity to include the problems of
> Gewinnst/Gewer, I just don't think these are exclusive of Gestell but
> more complementary if seemingly antagonistic ways of conceptualising
> the same ontological structure of our modern human understanding. But
> in order to do so we need to see at least the broad outlines of
> Heidegger's whole complicated 'world view'. I think perhaps we're just
> vaguely starting to do just that, but one should never underestimate
> that old Nazi's ability to think.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Malcolm
>






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